Friday Coup commemoration

Last Friday, April 13, the government invited everyone to gather in front of the Miraflores presidential palace, to commemorate the five year anniversary of the coup. Justin took this photo of my cousin Colin, my friend from Evergreen, Daniel, and I after we had been befriended by a few Chavista lawyers who dressed us up to look like the thousands of other people there.

Art in Caracas

Caracas has many nice museums, all with no entry fee. I have explored the art museums a few times, my favorite is the museum of modern art. It is a pretty big space, and the building is formed sort of like a maze. At the bottom of the maze they have a large collection of Picasso sketches, and a pretty wide collection other big international artists, like Henry Moor. They have a big video art area, with four screens always playing, and a computer lab where you can watch more. I am attracted to video art because it can capture the modern senses more effectively than still images and show progression of a theme. However, I have only seen about two different pieces that I liked. One was in San Francisco, and the other was here in Caracas. The One in Caracas was interesting because it showed the photos of barrios filling up a hillside. It is hard to show a concept of change in still life, so the use of photo and video made sense.
I have been struggling to show what I have been learning in paintings. Everything here is in process. It is experimental and in transition, so I need to find a way to express that. So far I have finished a painting of a woman in a education mission, and I am working on a painting that shows a working woman in the center of a barrio. The message I am trying to show is that this is her situation, and she is the center of this community.

Meeting again with Yanahir from Cariqual radio

Thursday evening I met with Yanahir Reyes who has a radio program at the Radio Periola station in Caricua. I invited Daniel and Megan to come along. We met up at 6pm at the metro station, and while we were waiting for Megan, Yanahir told us about the Internationa Woman’s conference that had taken place in Caracas last week. Only select groups could attend, so Yanahir was not able to go. I would have wanted to go as well, I had read about it in the news last month. Yanahir was commented how crazy it was that they were not trying harder to break down class boundaries in the women’s movement by inviting volunteer community groups from poor areas to attend. She did go and interview that attendees, with her tape recorder while the attendees were on break. Most of the Women she spoke with were from Latin American countries, but she did talk to a Canadian, and we helped her translate the response while we were participating in her radio show later that evening.

While we were waiting in the metro, she also talked about a small conference that had been put on by a North Amercan women who focuses on midwifery and humane birthing. The workshop/ conference was free and in Spanish. Yanahir wanted to attend a workshop that is happening in Costa Rica about similar themes, but it is way too expensive.
She spoke to us about the terrible practices and norms around birthing in Venezuela, especially poor areas with high birth rates. She explained how sexuality and safe sex are not talked about normally, even though the media and other parts of the culture are very sexualized. She explained that machismo plays a really big part in the high amount of pregnancies, because the guys refuse to use protection. She said that women are often afraid of getting hit by their partners so they don’t insist on it. Also, she said that low self esteem and self worth are huge problems that contribute to this.
She told us about women who try to abort their babies through terrible and dangerous means, because abortion is illegal and only available to the rich who can afford it. She explained a few really gruesome practices for self abortion that she had seen on a video.
Yanahir also spoke about the problems with the birthing process. Women in labor are not accompanied by anyone, they are alone with the doctors and nurses. Cesarean sections are very common, not because it is necessary, but because it is better for the doctors. Cesareans are also more expensive, so it is worse for the poor women.

*I should look into if the Barrio Adentro programs are helping with births.

Before the interview started, as we were walking around, Yanahir talked about how she is buying an apartment with her mother. Her mother recently divorced her father, because he is physically abusive, he is a fighter for socialism, but he is machista. Yanahir said that the new laws about violence against women have made it easyer for women to get divorced.

The actual interview is on tape, and I have yet to write is down, but I will include it in this section when I have it done.
Some of the topics she spoke about were;
The history of the radio station Radio Perola,
Low self esteem contributing to the problems of girls and women and how the goal of her radio program is to focus on women and raise the esteem of women.
Her program is aimed at working women, women in the home, pregnant women and many other topics as well.
Socialism here is based on the work of women, the barrio adentro doctors, the majority of the consejo comunale participants, are women.
Violence against women is a big issue, included, plastic surgery is another very popular form of violence.

Susanna

Yesterday I met with Susanna Gonzalas for lunch. Daniel came along. We met in Bolivar square and she led us to a restaurant which worked really well because it was not too noisy. Daniel brought his audio recorder, but it ran out of space mid way through, so I will have to check to see what we got.
The interview was useful, but with ordering and eating it was not really a formal interview.
I started out by explaining that I am interested in learning about the Consejo Comunales, what women are doing in their communities, and her experience of working in her Consojo.

Susanna explained,
The Consejos are a very good way of giving power directly to the people, it is real power and a very different structure. Consejo Comunales are a way of concreting what the gov. has been talking about all along.
It is a good idea because the things that need to be done in communities are designed from and by the community members. Before you had to struggle with the gov. institutions to fix things like a road. Now you decide what you are going to do and how you are going to do it.
However, the people are not prepared yet. The people have to un-learn many things from the past, but they are trying. People now have different values from what is needed to organize effectively.
She mentioned how it has been delightful to hear young people in her barrio talking about their worries about their community and the world.
She said that much of the challenge in organizing in her community is that “we are working with normal people who before maybe never worried about their neighbors.”
Then she talked about part of the culture which is very appearance obsessed, to a point where plastic surgery, specifically breast implants, are very common. Teen age girls ask their parents for them for their Birthdays. “And we are in a revolution, what does that mean?”
Even though many things existed before Chavez, the difference now is that state policies help us.
The Consejo Comunale in my barrio started with 13 people. It was not very effective, so we had a new election and suddenly there were 70 people on the council.
A lot of us are still thinking in the old way of organizing, we think about representative democracy, not participatory democracy. So the process is slow. I learned that you can’t do things for other people. So when others ask me to lead because I know how to get things done, I say no, we have to all figure out how to do it and do it collectively.
“It is a process, we learn in the process.” We are having to figure out how to do things, and sometimes work outside of the regulations because they are not working.
We have gotten a lot done. We have our electricity system done. We are going to have out road. We are going to have more new housing with the program Substitution of Shacks for houses. We have a news paper.
We have four or five opposition people in our council of 70.
I wrote an article about the same event as another community member, who was opposition, and it was a process to agree on how to present both views of the same event.

I asked her about the effects of the mission Madres de Barrio.
She replied that sometimes she thinks that what the gov. is doing is populist. Because programs like Madres de barrio don’t go to the root of the problem. But then I think about the economic divide.

I asked her to speak about other community work she has done.
She talked about the school in Nuevo Tenagua that she worked on, the barrio Charlie lived in. I did not get a lot of details about it, but she said that it was an integral project. Adults would participate, and it was very flexible. If the water came on, everyone would be let out of school to go help with laundry. Sometimes there would be school on holidays. It sounded like it ended badly, with very painful interpersonal conflict.

She talked about a co-op she started when she was younger and had no children. She started making things out of clay, never having experience or instruction before. Then she and a few other people from the community went to a work shop. They started a co-op business. This was before the gov. was promoting co-ops. It was mostly women, and two men. The women who has children and others to take care of earned more, even if the weren’t as fast or good as others. Some of the extra profits went to food for the kids at school, and other causes.

Now, by law there has to be half women in the gov. Some people say is that good if they are not trained and ready? I think it is, gaining experience is the only way to show people how to do it.

Susanna then gave us a few other people to contact who are involved in cultural co-ops, and said that she would think about more people and email us if they agreed.


Later we called the Italian couple to see if we could meet them. They told us about a free video screening they were putting on that evening, so we got the directions and sowed up on time. They are showing a series of films every Tuesday for a few weeks, all on the theme of drugs. The film last night was Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas. There were other youngish people there, and they were serving pasta.
Before the film started, while they were waiting for people to show up, we spoke with the Italians, Alexandro and Clementino, and they told us about what they do in the barrio Petare. They also told us about the cultural center we were in, which has a small hostel upstairs and all sorts of classes such as capuera, and salsa.

Barrio 23 de Enero

Late this morning Justin, Daniel, myself, and two Venezuelan friends of ours met up with Ohel at Agua Salud metro station, on the edge of the 23 de Enero Barrio. Ohel took us in a taxi to a neighborhood that was holding elections for representatives for their new Consejo Comunale (community council). This council would represent a section of the hill we looked up at from the road, as the new regulations require each council to only include 200 to 400 families. The brick houses covered every inch of land on the hill, many were two stories, and separated by walkways, mostly simply stairs.
The area where the voting took place was a small parking lot, with a tent set up over a table and a few chairs. On a wall on the opposite side of the small parking lot type area, were the postings of the various positions that people were running for, with the candidates names and pictures below. The elections began at 8am, and the results were announced around 4pm. There was a group of people who there for the entire time just observing to ensure a transparent and legitimate process. Many people, some from other communities, hung out most of the day, the area was always busy, and the music played loudly the entire time. A few women were running the operation, explaining what they were doing and the rules with a microphone.
A woman who was running for the position of women’s committee (committee del mujer) invited us to her house for lunch. We climbed a few narrow stair cases that separated the clay brick walls of the houses that blended one into another. Her house was two levels, nicely tiled and furnished on the first floor and the second floor was an open space with a railing that looked over the barrio on two sides and a thin metal roof. We ate fried chicken and french-fries, until we were called to return to the voting area where the votes were being counted. Later we learned that the women who fed us had won the election.
Ohel then took us and a few other’s who were from other communities but volunteer to help out other communities form consejo comunales. Ohel asked a bus driver who was parked nearby to take us all to another part of 23 de Enero. Here we there was a group gathering for their first meeting, to begin creating their consejo, which was for one large fourteen story building and two smaller buildings. We spoke with Ohel about the laws and regulations of the consejos. And as more people showed up for the meeting we spoke with them about why they were forming a consejo, what they hoped to do.
When the meeting began, Ohel led the meeting, standing in the middle of the large group that sat along the stone wall that separated the walkway/plaza area from a garden and then a parking lot. He explained the different positions that would need to be filled, asked people what they would like to run for, and they made plans to deliver invitations and post flyers for the next meeting. They also began choosing a name for their consejo, besides their officially given number title. They began calling out names and voting by raising their hands in favor or not, but then a man spoke up and proposed that the proposed names could all be put on the ballot so the whole community could decide.
After the meeting we were ready to go, but Ohel insisted that we go up to one of the apartments in the large building and have some soup. We followed him up ten flights of stairs, to a nice apartment where we eventually ate mondongo (cow stomach) soup and bread. There were at least three generations of women who lived in the apartment, I couldn’t figure out if it was four or not. There were men there too, but I didn’t know if they were friends or partners. After drinking little cups of sweet black coffee, and chatting with one of the women who lived there and a neighbor women who was there organizing paperwork from the meeting, we walked back to the metro in the dark, accompanied by Ohel and four others. The lights of the barrio were beautiful, and windows of the tall apartment buildings were light up brightly and wide open.
By that time it were all very sleepy, we had stayed up to around 2am the night before at a salsa club in Sabana Grande, where there had been live music. While there we also met a woman from the states who has been living in Caracas for a few months. She is trying to put together a network for people who come down here to lean about Venezuela for long periods of time. We agreed to meet Tuesday, to share contacts.

Semana Santa

Semana Santa, the week of Easter, most businesses are closed and people take time off from work, for a week or more if they can. Many leave the city and visit other parts of the country or if they are rich they travel abroad.
This put a kink in my progress. No interviews were possible, the people in La Vega took off for the river for eight days, no one else was available for interviews until the week after. I really wanted to start doing more outside of painting and Spanish, it is frustrating sometimes how much things shut down for holidays, especially when I want to be getting things done.

4/13/07
Five years ago there opposition attempted to unseat Chavez with a Coup on April eleventh, and by the thirteenth he had been returned to power by the demands of the people. This Wed. there was a large gathering in downtown Caracas. There were speakers and Chavez also appeared and spoke. There were various community events on Thursday, and on Friday people gathered in front of Miraflores, the presidential palace, where they had gathered five years before demanding the return of their president.
I attended the Friday rally, which was like a giant party that filled the street and stretched for three blocks or more. Most people were in the red T-shirts that the government gives out, and many with the matching hats as well. People were simply partying in the street, drinking beer, eating pop corn and meat kabobs, waiting for Chavez to appear and speak. When he finally did arrive on the giant stage that could be seen from a few blocks away, he led a song, and his voice was projected over many speakers along the street. I was one block away, but could see him on the stage behind a giant red podium, distinctly shaped torso and head, waving his arms up in the air at times. I stayed for a while and then left, but Chavez spoke for at least three or four hours. The guard of my apartment building was watching him speak a few hours after I left the rally.
Myself and two gringo friends were flagged down by a small group of middle aged lawyers, who kept chatting with us and offering us beer for over an hour as we all waited for Chavez to appear. The warmth and hospitality of people always surprises me.

Week one

I am starting this series with a painting of an older woman who I took a photo of while visiting a Mission Ribas class. The women’s granddaughter is sitting next to her. I was told that her granddaughter accompanies her to all of her classes. The photo attracts me because the women’s expression is very kind and happy.
I am trying to use the colors from the photo, as well as the shapes and perspective. I am hoping to use a painterly impressionist style, but of course that is hard when the focus of the painting is faces. I am really tired of painting realistically and smoothly, but I am still stuck in the habit. Perhaps I need to start something very abstract at the same time, to counter my tendencies. I think that I need to add more to the painting that I am working on than is already there, but the question is what that is. It is already a very crowded picture, so what then would balance it out?
Is it enough to stick with a very simple color palate, and use big strokes?

I have started reading El Pequeno Nicolas. It is very slow going because my vocabulary is so limited. It is good practice to be reading the different tenses, and to be seeing the pronouns so often.

Journaling

In Ultimas Noticias, yesterday, I read an article about the new law that was passed protecting women and children from violence. It was exciting to see the week after meeting with the women from Ina Mujer who participated in creating it.
There was also an article about the changes that are occurring in school books, to include images of Afro Venezuelans. They might have mentioned that there is more to the program, but I didn’t understand it very well. What they emphasized in the headlines seemed to be that they are working toward ending racism.
To me these things seem like such basic steps, I am almost surprised that they have not already been around for a while. However, when considering the chaotic history of this government, and what comes first in a machismo culture that has machismo leaders, that it has taken so long for laws to protect women from domestic violence and men forcing women to prostitute, is understandable.
What is interesting is that although these changes are happening late for western time standards, when legislation and changes are happening, they are being created to their full potential, to be more progressive than most other places. Because it is so bad, they are making sure they reach exactly the ideal and no less. Do we have laws protecting women from psychological violence in the US?
It would be good to know when the domestic violence laws were passed in the US, and who initiated and formed them.

Spring Journaling

4/23/07

Contributing factors to why Venezuela has a weak economy outside of the oil industry.

The economic explanation:
The Dutch Disease- Where new discoveries or favorable price changes in one sector of the economy, cause distress in other sectors- for example agriculture and manufacturing.
Persistent Dutch Disease provokes a rapid, even distorted growth of services, transportation and other non trade ables while simultaneously discouraging industrialization of agriculture.
Policymakers in undeveloped nations are consistently unable to counter this dynamic.

Mineral ‘rents’ have a particularly perilous nature because they can be easily exploited and exhausted.
“The rents, they argue, too often foster persistent rent-seeking behavior and a bias toward unproductive activities, leading to poor development outcome (Karl, 5).”
Karl says-However, “The Dutch Disease is not automatic. The extent to which it takes effect is the result largely of decision making in the public realm.”
She explains economic effects like The Dutch Disease are outcomes of “the particular institutional arrangements”, political habits and arrangements made by those in power.


Another contributing factor to Venezuela’s lack of industry and reliance on imports is:

As Fernando Coronil explains in Magical State, Nature Money and Modernity,

The combination of the escalating foreign debt and declining economy due to drop in oil prices in the 1980s, caused
‘Local businesspeople to lose confidence in the local market, as a result of the states inability to promote the expansion of the local economy.

Cariqual Radio Station with Yanahir

Cariqual is an area that includes about 60,000 people.
The radio station started as loud speakers driving around in a car, spreading information.
When it began, and was still illegal, it broad casted out of an apartment.
Chavez recognized the role of the independent radio stations in the coup, because the state station was taken off the air. When that happened the people from this station went to help the state station and get them back on the air.
Now we have programs directed to families, for people who are in different educational missions,
This program speaks to the needs of women. It is called Millenia de la Mujer, it is three years old.
This program is directed to women and mothers who work hard in home and in the workplace.
Yanahir, “One of my focuses of my program is to bring dignity to pregnant women. In my country the birthing process is very dehumanized. There is not very much education about what the process is like.”
In the radio program, “we are using a lot of gender in language to sensitize women to gender.”
During the day, Yanahir works in the barrios, working with pregnant women, educating them about breast milk.
The law of nutrition and lactation is being discussed in ‘street parliaments’.

Frente Francisco Miranda

We are four years old, work with all of the missions, and we are anti imperialist. We bring up anti imperialist tribunals, educating people about how capitalism doesn´t benefit us. The issue is with the transnational and people who make war for money. Our mission is to break the hold they have on us. They dominate us with our own ignorance. The majority of people involved are youth aged 18- 25.
Most participants have the opportunity to take a course on social work in Cuba. All of us are volunteers.
They call themselves fighters and there are 21,000 participants across the country.
The front began after Chavez and Fidel were talking about how to bring young, new blood into the revolution.
One guy said, “We are the catalyst for the new changes.”
“Our role is to teach people their rights and how to access those rights, like how to vote.”
They think that there are more women than men members.
Our work is going to the barrios, we talk to people, if we find people who are not yet involved in missions yet, we try to get them involved.
If we find people using drugs, we take them to the rehabilitation center.
We all should be part of the territorial reserve of civilians in order to be prepared in case of an event, but most of us are too busy with our social work. The territorial reserve is open to all. It is a civilian militia that meets a few times a month in various parts of the country.

We have reading study groups, we discuss what the president says at the UN, and read Marx etc.

Catia TV

Wilfredo spoke to us.
He told us the story of Catia TV.
It has been running for many years, for 16 years as an illegal station, and it has been legal for the past 5 years.

It began with a group of youngsters in the 80s, who were broadcasting with a 16mm camera.
They also played films on the barrio basketball court. They showed Mexican dramas because they exemplified and drama they were experiencing.
They began broadcasting out of an asylum that was in their barrio, where there was a cultural house that served as a space for them.
They began interviewing their elders, who were afraid of the cameras at first due to the reprisals in the past. In order to get the people talking, they would ask them questions about baseball games, specific ones in the past, and they would loosen up and speak about other events that had occurred in that time.
They would project movies and baseball games, and then show footage of the interviews. The neighborhood was only 153 families, but we competed with the commercial stations because people wanted to see themselves.
“Then we began to dream about creating a community TV station. People like to see themselves, we knew that.”
Now they have community teams of audio visual production, and they give workshops to other communities.
Their motto is “Don’t watch TV, come and make it.”
“Today we are networking with 45 community TV stations.”


Nucleus of Endogenous Development
The area was a PDVSA filling station. Because of population growth, this space was abandoned as a filling station. In 2003 it was agreed that homes would be built here.
“We have a textile factory, shoe factory, which are both coops.
We have the two fazes of Barrio Adentro health clinics, and we will be building a library info center, sports court, and much more.
There will be a school of construction that teaches building with more economic materials. There will be a Bolivarian School ( I am not sure it is a university or what level), there will be a day care center for children of the workers.
All on 12 hectors of land, this is the first project of it’s kind.

The textile factory named Venezuela Advances
Is a factory for shirts and other clothes, has 154 workers, only 3 are men.
All of these women took classes at Mission Vuelvan Caracas.
The make school and military uniforms, shirts and aprons, that they are contracted to make.
Before this project, the majority of these women were unskilled. They are all different ages. “We are all the owners. All of the ideas and decisions are decided upon all together, as an assembly.”
They got a loan from the government, (probably PDVESA) for 1 billion bolivares. It is not all spent yet. PDVESA also pays for their rent and electricity.
“We are divided into sections of work, there is not an overseer.”
They have been operating for 2 years. They are looking forward to entering into a South American bartering trade system/ organization- Mercosur.

INA Mujer

The woman we spoke with explained that her job is to promote the Afro Venezuelan perspective in the Government.
She had been recently elected as the general coordinator for the League of Afro Ven. Women for a two year term.
“I will be in charge of promoting our norms and practices having to do with health etc.
The tourist towns on the beaches are enclaves of Afro Ven. History. AIDS is a big problem in these areas.
Statistics that the ministry of health are only coming from people who are getting treated.
With out women organized we have done a community review.
We are providing written and audio visual material, linked to the UN.
In Three states they will start pilot projects to help with these issues.

We are calling out for all women to march with us on International Woman’s day. We are calling for regulations of material in the media about images of women. From the Regulating Board of Media and the Ministry of Communication.
We are also organizing the 3rd national congress of women Internationals are invited.

We have been organizing 18,000 different grassroots organizations, that all form part of Ina Mujer. Each organization has between 5-50 women.
Ina Mujer is trying to work with congress to promote the law about violence against women. The law is the first of its kind in Venezuela. It typifies the types of violence. The law has nonsexist language.
We are also working with the organizations that take in the complaints from the women, such as the police.

They also work with the Central University’s Women’s studies Dept. on various issues.

There is a lot of work to be done to raise consciousness about diversity and inclusion among women.
Afro Venezuelans are discriminated against in 3 ways:
1. Gender
2. Race
3. Class

There is a presidential commission for the prevention of xenophobia, everyone showed up for the first day for the picture, but since then the minister of education and the minister of communication have not showed up again to the meetings.

As of now, the government does not use language that reflects Afro Venezuelans, they only say that they are descendants of slaves.
“We have had to give a lot of workshops to raise consciousness about the role of Afro Venezuelans in the common image of what people have of a Venezuelan is.
One state has made progress around including text and pictures to show that Afro Ven. Identity.
With three years of w, there has been little advancement, but we hope to advance with this model.

Ina Mujer
The institute for Woman’s studies came from the fight of women to include the vision of women.
One woman in Ina Mujer has been working to consolidate the 18,000 woman’s organizations. However, there are municipalities that are not even very far from Caracas that do not have Woman’s organizations.

We also work with CEDAW, and international organization. Ina Mujer has a committee that works with this organizations, which was formed by 165 countries at a UN committee.
“We use this to propel our work for women. We report back our results about advances. An error is that we have not yet given feedback about our critique of the suggestions of the UN committee.
“transcending gender is even too radical for many women in power, so much is put off in the gov. involving women’s issues.” “ The mistake is that these issues need to include the idea that gender issues area bout men as well. This would transcend the idea that women’s issues are about harassment etc. and language, which are just symptoms. The cause is gender inequality. When you change a word, you are not changing the actions. The fact that each women is unique, because there is not equality among women.

The Organic Law of Prevention and attention to violence against women and families.
The law typifies all the different abuses.
The general fiscal agent has set aside 100 public defenders to work on this law.
Along with the law, Ina Mujer will be training the public defenders, raising their consciousness.
One woman who worked there said, “The most important thing is the manifestation of respect. Gender studies is commonly reduced to the study of women. The idea of equality has not yet been integrated on the individual or societal level.”

Another accomplishment for women is the mission Madres del Barrio (Mothers of the Neighborhood). This mission is trying to raise consciousness about the woman’s ability to be creative and work.
The social worker comes and involves them in the other missions, so they have what they need, and also they can apply/ use their skills in the community.

My thoughts:
I think that Madres del Barrio is going to be more effective than the US welfare system for many reasons. Social workers visiting the women in their community, making sure that they are contributing to the projects that are happening in the community, making sure that they are using the education, food and health missions so that they are staying healthy and learning, is a process that makes sense.
I originally heard about the program from feminists who were describing it as compensation and value of the work that goes on in the home, which contributes to society by nourishing and raising children. This seemed like a powerful idea when I heard it.However, I think it is not complete because I see the “mothering instincts” as socially created, and the ideal that we should be pushing for is true equality, which would mean sharing of the work that people do in the home.
However, in the case of a single parent, there needs to be extra help if the income is not sufficient.

Central University Women´s Studies Dept.

The director Magnelena Valivieso- never showed up, but another woman spoke.

What they address-
The precence of women in organization
The study of women in/ and poverty
The are always working with violence against women and domestic violence.
They work with women and also the violent men.
They give an award every year to a person for important work.
They have spent 5 years working on the Organic Law of Work for Women.

The law that they have been working on, which Magnelena began- The Law for a Life Without Violence for Women, has not been signed yet, but is in parliament.

The age of pregnancy among girls ages 8 to 18 is getting younger.
The average number of children per woman has reduced.

They think that young pregnancies are a determining factor in the cause of women in poverty.
The directors of the schools do not let pregnant girls go to school, although they are allowed to attend by law.
21-22% of pregnancies in the country are girls under 18.

The aggravating factor is that since the 80s poverty has increased.
The number of girls prostituting and living on the streets has increased.
On Sabana Grande children in prostitution has increased.

The problem is also that the amount of participation of women in government. Each party is lawfully supposed to run 30% women candidates.
The number of women in the parliament has increased, because parties have run the women as fillers, and many of them won.
Not all of the women in the government have gender consciousness, but the women who do work closely with the women’s movement.

Something that especially effects women is not knowing what their rights are.

The department is trying to bring gender consciousness to all the departments in the University.
Right now medicine does not have a focus on women, it mostly focuses on men’s bodies.

Venezuela has the highest rate of children per women in South America.

Right now there is not a methodology for gathering statistics on violence against women, girls, anyone.

60% of households are headed by women in poor areas.

The ministry of health was offering birth control pills through the ministry of health, but now they say they don’t have the funding.
This is a political problem.

Article 50- the right of children say that doctors have to attend to children without the accompaniment of their parent. Before this law was passes, a women under 18 had to have the accompaniment of a parent to receive health care.
Much of the new policy gets stuck in the ministries, which are always changing. The minister of education just changed, so they don’t know is all of the work they have been doing on sexual education and prevention of diseases will have to start all over again or not